Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/94

 It would be from the underworld that the echo would come. And next to New York, Blake knew, Chicago would make as good a central exchange for this underworld as could be desired. Knowing that city of the Middle West, and knowing it well, he at once "went down the line," making his rounds stolidly and systematically, first visiting a West Side faro-room and casually interviewing the "stools" of Custom House Place and South Clark Street, and then dropping in at the Café Acropolis, in Halsted Street, and lodging houses in even less savory quarters. He duly canvassed every likely dive, every "melina," every gambling house and yegg hang out. He engaged in leisurely games of pool with stone-getters and gopher men. He visited bucket-shops and barrooms, and dingy little Ghetto cafés. He "buzzed" tipsters and floaters and mouthpieces. He fraternized with till tappers and single-drillers. He always made his inquiries after Binhart seem accidental, a case apparently subsidiary to two or three others which he kept always to the foreground.